Lena Booth

Biography

Finance Professor and Academic Director of Online MGM Program

Areas of Expertise

Corporate Finance

Capital Raising

Investment Banking

Financial Markets

Dr. Lena Booth is a finance professor and academic director of the online Master of Global Management (MGM) program at Thunderbird. She teaches strategic financial analysis, corporate financial management, global financial management, and advanced topics in finance such as global private equity. Born in Malaysia and educated in Singapore and the U.S., she speaks and writes English, Chinese, and Malay, and speaks a few Chinese dialects.

Lena’s teaching and research interests have taken her all over the world. She travels frequently to many cities in the United States and Canada, and to Asia and Europe. She has presented research and taught executives in France, Switzerland, Ireland, Italy, Brussels, Czech Republic, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Taipei, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Lena's excellence and dedication in teaching have earned her several teaching awards multiple times: Outstanding Faculty Member in the Thunderbird full-time MBA program, Best Professor in the Thunderbird Global MBA program, and Best Professor in the Executive MBA program for LG executives.

In addition to teaching in the MBA/MGM, Master of Science, online MBA, and EMBA programs at Thunderbird, Lena also participated in executive education programs with multinational companies such as Exxon Mobil, LG Electronics (Korea), SK Corp. (Korea), Xenel (Saudi Arabia), Alfa Grupo (Mexico), Prestolite (Mexico), Amway, Cotemar (Mexico), SABIC (Saudi Arabia), and Bank Mandiri (Indonesia). She has also taught in the Advanced Management Program for oil and gas executives, and in the Project Artemis program, a unique business-skills training program that aims to build the entrepreneurial skills of promising businesswomen from Afghanistan.

Lena's primary research focus is on capital raising through initial public offerings and through commercial banks. Her research has appeared in several distinguished peer-reviewed journals and won her the Thunderbird Faculty Research Award. She also has authored various case studies on financial analysis, investment analysis and valuation, risk management, leveraged buyout, and financial management.

Lena holds a Ph.D. in finance, an MBA, and a bachelor’s of business administration. She has been a professor at Thunderbird since 1995.